The present invention relates to a sleeve for receiving, to project therethrough, a unit of generally rectangular cross section such as a heater or air conditioner, and, more particularly, an erectable sleeve having a compact orientation for storage and an extended orientation for use.
Protective sleeves, for air conditioners, heating units and the like extending through an exterior building wall, have heretofore been bulky, hard to handle, costly to transport to the construction site and inconvenient to store at the construction site. Such a sleeve acts both as a support and as a protective housing for the unit and, as such, must combine a high level of structural strength with water-seal integrity.
The advantages of a sleeve which could be manufactured and stored in a collapsed condition and erected into a bulky but useful shape only when needed are self evident. Such an erectable sleeve should be erectable, without the use of tools, to easily and rapidly form a rigid, relatively permanent structure of high strength and stability. Exemplary of the attempts to form such erectable structures in the past have been U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,282,733; 3,336,715; 3,386,434 and 3,677,517. Additionally U.S. Pat. No. 2,728,935 discloses a collapsible shoeshine box. The products disclosed by these patents have not been entirely satisfactory, however, some failing to provide the necessary degree of compactness in the broken-down or non-erected orientation, others failing to provide a sufficiently locked and stable structure in the erected orientation.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an erectable sleeve having a very low profile in the non-erected orientation.
Another object is to provide such a sleeve having in its erected orientation a locked and stable configuration.
A further object is to provide such a sleeve which is simple to manufacture, simple to erect without the use of tools and yet provides a water-tight seal for the unit projecting therethrough.